Evidence of meeting #34 for Transport, Infrastructure and Communities in the 40th Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was airlines.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Candice Bergen Conservative Portage—Lisgar, MB
As well, you've talked a lot about the European model. Obviously, in Canada the reality is that our weather is extremely different. It's a lot more severe than in most European countries.
I know you talked about extraordinary circumstances. So weather would not be one of those circumstances where--if I'm understanding this correctly--airlines would not have to pay for people to wait on the tarmac, but they would have to compensate for hotels, for meals? Is that correct?
NDP
Jim Maloway NDP Elmwood—Transcona, MB
The whole weather issue is one that's been brought up by the airlines.
I think Napoleon would probably disagree with you that weather is worse in Canada than in Europe. Europe is the same as Canada. It has bad weather, and whether you're flying into Russia or into northern Europe, you're going to get the same sort of bad weather you have in Canada. The exclusion does not just simply apply to bad weather. It's extraordinary circumstances. Whatever an airlines happens to think is extraordinary circumstances, that provides the basis for the exclusion.
It's up to the passengers to be smart and aggressive enough to prove them wrong if they get out of hand. Some airlines are operating very favourably and they're paying the customers. Others are hiding and they're saying, “No, those are extraordinary circumstances. Take me to small claims court.” We can't construct a bill that is totally against the airlines, because that's what they want us to do. They then can go to court and use that big legal team that they have to throw it out.
We don't want that. We want something that survives court challenges, and the European model has survived two of them.
Conservative
Candice Bergen Conservative Portage—Lisgar, MB
I'll go back to the weather.
I would say that our weather actually is very severe. We have blizzards. With the blizzards that we experience, schools and so on are shut down. Regardless of that, if weather would cause an airline to cancel its flights, what you're saying is that one or two nights should be compensated, as well as meals, as well as one or two phone calls and an e-mail or a fax. That's my understanding of what you would suggest.
I'm wondering if you have costed that out. For example, sometimes we have seen it and it seems to happen over Christmas, where we have major storms. The airports are full of people who are waiting; literally thousands and thousands of people are delayed. They eventually get to where they need to go, but because of severe weather, they are delayed.
I'm just wondering if you have had the opportunity to cost that out, even approximately.
NDP
Jim Maloway NDP Elmwood—Transcona, MB
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I'll tell you, I'd love to be able to cost it out. Perhaps when the airline people are on in the next hour, you can ask them all these questions about how much they have actually paid out in denied boarding between 1991 and 2005 in Europe. How much have they paid out in denied boarding and cancellations between 2005 and the current period in Europe? We can't get the information.
On the European group that we were studying, the regulation can't get the information, so why is this such a big secret on the part of the airlines? They haven't stopped flying, so clearly they are not paying out as much as they would want you to believe.
NDP
Jim Maloway NDP Elmwood—Transcona, MB
I'm trying to find out too. When you find out, would you please let me know? Maybe in the next hour you will.
Liberal
Joe Volpe Liberal Eglinton—Lawrence, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I'm going to share some of my time with Mr. Dhaliwal.
Just for everybody's clarification, because we're getting into an area where people will tend to go from fact to spin to outright fill-in-the-blank, I'm just wondering whether Mr. Maloway understands that by appearing as a witness before a committee there is an implicit obligation to tell the truth. I don't want to offend him. Everybody who comes before that microphone implicitly and explicitly is held to account for telling the truth to the committee.
He's aware of it, I gather.
NDP
Dennis Bevington NDP Western Arctic, NT
On a point of order, Mr. Chair, parliamentarians are protected under our code with the understanding that they are telling the truth. They're protected, and that applies to all parliamentary behaviour.
I think to question the statements of the witness here is going past what is parliamentarian behaviour.
Liberal
Joe Volpe Liberal Eglinton—Lawrence, ON
It really wasn't a question of Mr. Maloway. I didn't mean to offend. I said it with all due deference. I just wondered whether he was aware that this is part of the process of coming before a committee.
I noted that some of the questions that were being asked...there wasn't an opportunity to be precise. I just wondered whether that was the case, for clarification more than anything else.
I mean, I appreciate that Mr. Bevington wanted to come to the defence of a colleague, but I wasn't on the attack, so....
November 2nd, 2009 / 4:10 p.m.
Conservative
Liberal
Joe Volpe Liberal Eglinton—Lawrence, ON
Thank you very much.
Mr. Maloway, you've taken some pains here to describe the fact that the bill is a first step towards providing consumers with some protection, and that one of the steps is to go to a service provider. There are several service providers. The ones that we're aware of are the airline industry and, of course, the airport management.
Is it your view that you need to solve all of the problems at once in one piece of legislation in order for this particular bill to have any legitimacy?
Liberal
Joe Volpe Liberal Eglinton—Lawrence, ON
Okay. Well, that's good. That's a good start.
I'm just wondering whether, from the study you've done on the legislation elsewhere, in fact a bill like this opened the door for solutions in court, solutions that weren't there before.
Is that what your bill is trying to get at?
NDP
Jim Maloway NDP Elmwood—Transcona, MB
Not really. The reason it's formed this way is because it would need a royal recommendation if it were to follow the route of having, say, a bureaucracy set up to adjust. So given that it's a private member's bill and we're working without a royal recommendation, we adopted the route we did to allow for small claims court action if the airlines don't comply on their own--which I think they will actually do.
But when we checked into this further, we found out this is exactly what's working in the European Union. That's the interesting part of it. The group that did the study in Europe looked at the transportation agencies in Belgium and France and all the different components in the European Union and they found that at the end of the day, it was EU claims and the small claims courts that are getting these settlements, and not the transportation agencies that they initially thought would be the bodies to do it.
Liberal
Joe Volpe Liberal Eglinton—Lawrence, ON
Mr. Maloway, just briefly, before I hand off to Mr. Dhaliwal, you're aware that Toronto is on the same latitude as Florence, Italy, and there are a lot of American states, as well as Canadian provinces, that fall well below Scotland and England on the latitude.
Liberal
Sukh Dhaliwal Liberal Newton—North Delta, BC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thanks, Mr. Maloway.
I also hear from consumers out there that we need some kind of legislation or regulations. The airlines have already submitted those binding rules to the CTA, and you are saying they don't go far enough.
What would you like to see the airlines do so that we wouldn't need a bill like this, or do you still feel that we need a bill irrespective of what the airlines do?
NDP
Jim Maloway NDP Elmwood—Transcona, MB
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The airlines simply bought time. They were facing the resolution by Mr. Byrne in the House, the unanimous resolution, and they were looking at probably having a bill brought in by the government. So in order to avoid that, they agreed with the minister to bring in their flights rights. They didn't follow flights rights. Now when they see a bill actually appear, they have tried to get the flights rights into their tariffs.
First of all, I don't know that they've even actually done it.
I mean, has anybody here been on the Air Canada website lately, or any of the websites lately, to get in and look at that 115-page--
Liberal
Sukh Dhaliwal Liberal Newton—North Delta, BC
But if they have done it, do you still need a bill like this?
